To Be a Kid (completed)

When we had Sage I was determined that I would not be a parent who competed with other parents in the game of who has the smartest, most brilliant, Einstein in the making, Harvard should be calling any day, child. Along the way I've met parents who were just as determined to lure me into the boxing ring of "here's what MY kid is doing now" jabs but I feel I was able to hold my own and steer clear of throwing any jabs or uppercuts from my corner. (I think I've been doing a little too much tae bo lately) Now, for certain, there are people who actually care and are interested in your child enough to want to know all the little details. I'm not talking about them, I'm talking about the ones who ramble off all the latest and greatest accomplishments there child has made and then ask you that inevitable question: "So, what is YOUR child doing now?" My answer was usually something like "Oh, we love to go to the zoo and tickle the sharks swimming over our heads" or "Sage is just getting into having me paint her nails and sometimes we make it extra special by also painting polka dots on them!" Secretly, I'm hoping my answer annoys the socks off them.

Still, I couldn't help falling into the trap of questioning if I'm teaching Sage enough right now. Is the new norm to have her reading before she gets to kindergarten? If it is then I'd better snap to it. Not to mention, we really need to clear up her numbers because mixing up 6 and 9 will be sooooo not cool by the time she's in preschool.

Then I read something so provocative that seriously, I feel like a new parent with a whole new set of parenting tools. There's this book that I highly recommend by Dr. Brazelton (he's a huge voice in the world of research in child development) and I had finally gotten around to reading his the chapter in his book Touchpoints that was on three year olds. When I got to the subject of cognitive development, what he had to say was so incredibly shocking to me that I think I ended up reading three times. Here's the first part of it.

"In the pressured world of families today, many parents of children aged three or younger will wonder when to begin teaching them to read and write. My response: Don't, until she demands it."

Don't teach your child to read unless she demands it? Are you kidding me?

He goes on to talk about a study done in the 60's where a group of three year olds were taught to read and gained adult approval because of it but were shunned by peers who hadn't learned the skills. Then they began to slip in second and third grade because the learning process they'd used earlier wasn't enough in the more complex studies of later grades. Once they lost their place in the top of the class, they also lost the adult approval that had fed them before and ended up truly in a sorry state since they had never developed the social skills needed to get along with their peers. In the end he concludes that the best thing you can for your child at this age is to let her learn for herself. Achieving a task on her own will give a sense of accomplishment that will serve her much more for future learning than if the parent had pushed her.

Let me tell you, since I've read this the air has changed in this house and it's been an eye-opener to me at how much I was taking charge of the activities we did. By far what I've noticed the most is how much more I enjoy just playing with them or watching them play. It's as if I'm learning right along with them only my lesson is on discovering more about my girls and who they are even at this young age. So thank you Dr. Brazelton for my lesson on withstanding peer pressure. I never thought I'd need that lesson at the age of 31 but apparently I did.